What have you done to your P5 today?

ohhhh HI! hahahaha randomly got on here today! Hope you are doing good bro, Nice to see you still have the protege5

whoa! Mike! How are you? Wow long time eh? Im doing great thanks and hope you're great as well!
Yep, still have the P5. Only have 145xxx miles. Cant seem to get rid of her yet, even though I can (probably) afford a new car. I still get compliments in this car. Love it.
Cant believe you're here today! Really nice to hear from you man. :)
Hmmmm...wonder if the old members are still lurking. We should have a meet.
 
The pads don't make contact to the entire rotor surface and you get a "ridge" on the outer edge that the pads catch on.

You need to pry something between the rotor and pad to force the the brake piston in a bit to get more clearance.


I was wondering if that might be the issue since the look like they do have that ridge or lip.
Have a look at this vid. Moves up just fine till it hits a certain point, then stops. Like theres another bolt or something, but there isnt, of course.
I'll try to move that piston in a bit to see if that helps. Thanks pcb! Always helpful.
 
You're welcome.
I'm always glad to help.

I have to use a pry bar to even lift mine because they're so rusted.
 
whoa! Mike! How are you? Wow long time eh? Im doing great thanks and hope you're great as well!
Yep, still have the P5. Only have 145xxx miles. Cant seem to get rid of her yet, even though I can (probably) afford a new car. I still get compliments in this car. Love it.
Cant believe you're here today! Really nice to hear from you man. :)
Hmmmm...wonder if the old members are still lurking. We should have a meet.

Im doing great man! i was talking to a Co-worker about his Mazdspeed3 and it made me jump on here and lurk around.... i didnt think id see anyone from the old days.
glad to see you are around bro... shoot me a DM with your contact info if you like.

Id be down for a meet up... I have a 2015 Golf R but she is down getting a built motor and some other goodies. (drive)
 
Just Wrapped!
attachment.php

attachment.php

attachment.php

attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • Screen Shot 2019-04-20 at 9.47.00 PM.png
    Screen Shot 2019-04-20 at 9.47.00 PM.png
    236.2 KB · Views: 397
  • Screen Shot 2019-04-20 at 9.46.46 PM.png
    Screen Shot 2019-04-20 at 9.46.46 PM.png
    273.4 KB · Views: 409
  • Screen Shot 2019-04-20 at 9.46.34 PM.png
    Screen Shot 2019-04-20 at 9.46.34 PM.png
    282.3 KB · Views: 391
  • Screen Shot 2019-04-20 at 9.46.25 PM.png
    Screen Shot 2019-04-20 at 9.46.25 PM.png
    370.7 KB · Views: 406
Last edited:
Holy crap that color is amazing!

I just put my summer wheels/tires on and installed my Hydra trailing arms. Out with the old, in with the brandnewawesomeshinygoldsexy trailingarms [emoji1787]
8209af4bc8cf79ed9baf57b2aafef92b.jpg
512c1a14274e97662c983839aba98349.jpg
 
hezron - yes that color is really amazing! I usually dont care for wraps as they tend to have more of a flat matte style finish. Yours seems to shine like a gloss paint. Looks really nice.

Protege5 Smoke - Those trailing arms are awesome. I'd love to pick up a set. How do they feel driving around? I have the AWR trailing links, but those Hydra arms look beefier.


Went out yesterday and decided to check the preload on the rear BC's. Turns out I had about 14mm of preload. EEK! Should be around 4mm. No idea how it got like that. Through the years, perhaps I adjusted them, or the alignment shop did. Either way, I set them back to the proper 4mm. What a huge difference in ride quality. Doesnt seem to slam over bumps like it did before. Much quieter than before, but still kind of noisey. Cant locate the source of this odd loud clicking I get over larger bumps. But I cant get over how much better the ride quality is compared to before. Night and day. Much less sway as well, even though it feels much softer. Zero body roll even with no rear sway bar. (Working on fabbing up some bushings/brackets for my modded OEM 16mm bar.) So, I urge anyone with BC's to go check their preload. Its easy enough to adjust and the payoff is worth it. Gotta love how easy BC's are to work on even if they're over a decade old like mine are.

Oh, also I feel like an idiot, but how do you remove the AC, fan, Heater knobs? (uhm)
The center fan knob pulls right out with no issues. But the other two refuse to come out. I was yanking on them pretty hard. I stopped because I thought they were going to break. Whats the secret? haha
 
Last edited:
Protege5 Smoke - Those trailing arms are awesome. I'd love to pick up a set. How do they feel driving around? I have the AWR trailing links, but those Hydra arms look beefier.

Honestly, I cant say theres a huge difference. But I havent really pushed the car since I put them on so theres not really any way of telling. As far as getting some, get a hold of Hydra on FB see if he has any more unclaimed sets. Otherwise, see if someone wants to part with theirs lol. It was a limited group but though, so your chances are slim.. :/
 
I saw a guy selling the Hydra ones on the Mazda Protege Parts group on facebook, not sure if they're still available or not.
Apparently it looks like he'll only be selling out parts in group buys now rather than 1 or 2 orders at a time and having to produce them every time. Don't quote me on that though, just too lazy to find his comment lol.
 
I'll keep an eye out. Thank you!

Quiet in here lately...

So, I saw these knobs awhile back and thought I'd purchase a set because I liked the way they look, the seller has great reviews about them and they were cheap. They snap right on nice and tight and imho, think they look better with the other round interior knobs. The old wedge knobs seem to collect a lot of dust on the wedged portion for me. These round ones shouldn't collect as much dust I would think. But yeah, so far I like them. I like the way the light shines a ring around the knob lol.
Please excuse the crappy pics. I'm no photographer and these are cell pics lol.
I remember someone saying they liked little things, like from eBay, and they might like these. Don't remember who it was. Door strikers or something? ��
Screenshot_2019-05-13-19-00-44.png


Screenshot_2019-05-13-19-01-22.png
 
I'll keep an eye out. Thank you!

Quiet in here lately...

So, I saw these knobs awhile back and thought I'd purchase a set because I liked the way they look, the seller has great reviews about them and they were cheap. They snap right on nice and tight and imho, think they look better with the other round interior knobs. The old wedge knobs seem to collect a lot of dust on the wedged portion for me. These round ones shouldn't collect as much dust I would think. But yeah, so far I like them. I like the way the light shines a ring around the knob lol.
Please excuse the crappy pics. I'm no photographer and these are cell pics lol.
I remember someone saying they liked little things, like from eBay, and they might like these. Don't remember who it was. Door strikers or something? ��
Screenshot_2019-05-13-19-00-44.png


Screenshot_2019-05-13-19-01-22.png
Oh I love them, can you link me?
 
After re-reading my post, one might think I bought these from eBay. I wanted to apologize for any confusion, if any lol.
Here's the link where I purchased mine.
https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32890751534.html?trace=wwwdetail2mobilesitedetail&productId=32890751534&productSubject=For-Mazda-323-Allegro-Familia-626-protege-Haima-Happin-Family-Air-Conditioning-Knob-Aluminum-Alloy-AC
I knew nothing about AliExpress and thought, hope I don't get burned for $7 lol. Transaction was same as Amazon or eBay compete with tracking number.
I purchased them April 27th and received them today, May 13th. Not too bad. I was in no hurry either. So far I'm satisfied.
 
Last edited:
It ain't that quiet. j/k!
I'd say share anything. I bet people would be interested.

So my CD player stopped working again. Doesn't even show the 6 CD's that are now stuck in there. Everything else works fine. It does that every now and then. It'll start working again whenever it wants to, like in a month or so lol.
 
Give it a good punch! Last time my old CD player ate a CD, a good whack released it.

On second thought, not too hard, otherwise you'll break it completely. There's a reason why I have a new headunit lol
 
(rofl2)

Still can't seem to figure out why my front calipers are stuck. Odd both would have the exact same issue. I'm sure it something really simple too. I won't take it in to a shop because around here they will screw you to the ground and also was recently laid off due to our owner operating without a license. Nice. So i couldn't pay a shop anyways.
I have always replaced the brakes on my car since day one and never had any previous issues at all.
The piston was thought to be the culprit originally. I thought so too. Thinking the piston was getting hung up on the ridge of the rotor. Looking at it closer I can see the piston does indeed clear the the top of the rotor. So now I'm really stumped. I've had these new rotors and pads for over a year and would like to install them. Should take 30 min but this issue has me at a compete loss.
Any ideas at all?
Here's the original video:

Also a pic I just now took:
Screenshot_2019-05-23-10-04-39.png

You can see the piston is clearing everything just fine. I don't get it....
 
Back